Thread: 1997 Nissan Pickup Missfire

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Man, I really wish I had a suggestion for you, but these newer cars with computers and fuel injection are so complicated it can be ANYTHING in there that is causing problems.

I just went through the same issue with my daily driver Honda Accord. Every once in a while the check engine light would come on and it would start breaking up badly. If I shut it off and restarted it the car would run fine until the next time it happened...........I never knew if that would be a day or a week. Finally took it to a shop down the road from my shop, because I know NOTHING about the newer cars. He replaced some ISC motor (sensor thingie) and it cost me $ 446.00. On the way home it did the same thing!

I got on line, and some people suggested a new fuel pump relay...........$ 99.00 later I had one, but it did the same thing a few days later. I did a complete tune up and changed the fuel filter (what a B**** of a job THAT is on a Honda) and spent another $ 156.00 on parts. A little while later the check engine light came back on and the problem resurfaced.

Finally, I spoke to a Service Advisor at Honda and he mentioned some Hondas had a recall on the ignition switch, so I went to his parts dept and bought one......... $ 60.00 more. That did the trick. I have now put over 1,000 miles on the car (two long trips to Lauderdale and back in there) and the car runs great. When I tore my old ignition switch apart I found the contacts were worn, evidently at times not sending enough juice to the computer or something.

The reason I am including my story into your thread is that, if I had to do it over I should have gone right to a Honda dealer and let them fix it in the first place. They work on them all day and have the test equipment and experience to fix them properly. I was afraid the tab would be too high by going there, but I ended up spending about $ 760 anyway, so I probably didn't save anything at all.

If no one here has a clear cut suggestion for you I would maybe try to find a Nissan forum..........just type Nissan Forums in Google and I bet there are some. I did that on the Honda and found lots of helpful people there, but unfortunately none had seen my exact problem. The days of us backyard tinkerers trying to fix newer, more complicated cars are over. There are so many sensors and computer related parts that any one of them can be the source of your problem.

Sorry for the long read, but I wanted you to have as much info as possible so you can make a good decision.

Don